Posts Tagged ‘There Came An Echo’

Voice control pops up in PC games every now and then, but has never stuck around long enough to not be eyed suspiciously as possibly a gimmick. For folks handy with a mouse, the question is often “Why would I want to yell when I can click quicker?” A new trailer for voice-controlled squad tactics ‘em up There Came An Echo goes a far way towards answering that, as well as announcing a release date of February 24th. In short: because being a squad commander yelling at folks who’ll shout back at you can feel pretty cool.

Craig ooohd and ahhd in the direction of There Came An Echo back in April, but I’ll take basically any excuse to mention it again. From Sequence devs Iridium Studios it’s a real-time tactical game with a cyberpunk aesthetic which pushes voice commands as the primary means of interaction. They went through Kickstarter originally, managing a cool $25k above their $90k target in March last year. It’s properly gorgeous and I’m very excited to get my hands and, uh, mouth on it once we get to the planned release later this year. The most recent trailer shows off the war room, a wave-defense style arena designed to allow experimentation with custom voice controls and tactics. Plan carefully how you proceed to it below.

There Came An Echo has geek credentials coming out of it’s face hole–Wil Wheaton and Ashly Burch are on board as voice actors–but I’m not all that bothered by the cast. Not when my voice is the real star. It’s a voice controlled squad strategy game where you’re shouting down orders to your team. Initially controlling a single player unused to the violence that’s being asked of him, you’ll talk him through each step required to turn a cryptographer into a corpse-maker. Follow my voice to the trailer…